UX/UI Design · Case Study

Peacock
Redesign

Making Peacock the single entry point for all NBC content, so users never have to leave to figure out what they can watch.

View Prototype →
Project Scope
App Redesign
Role
UX Research, UX/UI Design
Timeline
5 Weeks
Team
Product Designer

The Problem

NBC runs Peacock, NBC, and NBC Sports as separate products that carry overlapping content but operate on completely different access models. Peacock runs on a subscription. The NBC and NBC Sports apps require a cable or TV provider login. There is no connection between the two systems. So a Peacock subscriber who wants to watch a live game that only streams on NBC Sports has no way to authenticate and no explanation of why their subscription is not enough.

"I signed up for Peacock Premium and loaded the app. I expected the other NBC apps to be synchronized. They want a cable provider and I do not have one." — Roku Community Forum, Peacock & NBC Apps Thread, 2024."

User Research

I went through App Store reviews, Reddit threads, and community forums across the NBC and NBC Sports apps and mapped everything into an affinity map.

Affinity Map

Journey Mapping

Mapping the journey made one thing clear. The problem was that the app let the users get all the way to the point of watching something before telling them they could not. By then they had already invested time and the only option was to start over somewhere else.

Journey Map

Research Insights

Finding 01
No clear starting point. The same content across three apps left users unsure where to begin.
Finding 02
Inconsistent access rules. Subscriptions and TV provider authentication worked differently across each app.
Finding 03
App switching became the workaround. When access failed there was no path forward inside the app.

Design Direction

01
One entry point. Peacock becomes the primary place for all NBC content.
02
Access upfront. Requirements visible before users commit to content.
03
Consistent logic. Access flows work the same way regardless of content type.
04
Keep the momentum. Authentication moves users toward playback, not away from it.

The solution needed to be one app that could handle both subscription and TV provider access while keeping the experience consistent across all NBC content. I chose Peacock because it had the strongest existing UI foundation and was the app users were already most familiar with.

Ideation

Low Fidelity

Before making any visual decisions I built low-fidelity screens to work out where each feature would live and how users would find it.

Low fidelity wireframes

User Testing

I originally placed the AI Assistant inside the Search tab because that felt like the most logical home for it. Users did not agree. Every person I tested with looked for it on the home screen first. They expected it to be immediately there, not something they had to go find.

I moved it to the home screen in the final prototype.

Design Approach

The redesign came down to three focused additions. Each one addresses a different layer of the same problem.

Feature 01
TV Provider Access
Built into the entry experience. Users set up their TV provider when they first open the app.
Feature 02
AI Assistant
The access problem was not just structural. Users also needed a way to get answers in the moment without leaving whatever they were doing. An AI assistant embedded throughout the interface means users can ask about their plan, their provider, or what they can watch from any screen and get an answer without being redirected somewhere else.
Feature 03
Bleacher Buzz
Sports viewers were already leaving the app during games to check social media and comment threads. That meant they were also leaving the access ecosystem entirely. Bleacher Buzz keeps that conversation inside Peacock so users stay in the app through the full game, halftime included, without needing a second screen to feel connected to what they are watching.

High Fidelity

The final prototype uses Peacock's existing UI patterns so the new features feel native to the app.

Reflection

What I learned

I came into this thinking the problem was visual, bad screens and confusing layouts. What the research actually showed me was that the problem was structural. No amount of good UI fixes a system that was never designed to work as one thing.

Placing the AI Assistant in the Search tab felt completely logical to me, but every person I tested with went straight to the home screen first. That gap between where I put something and where a user looked without thinking was the most useful thing this project taught me.

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